Shiver me' Earthquakes

“C’mon, man let’s go!” John called. “This whole job gives me the creeps!” “We’re right here.” Steve whispered loudly. “Let’s just get the skull and go.” It was a typical Saturday- for an international thief for hire. It had all started at the Christmas party.

“Merry Christmas, Steve,” a mysterious voice whispered behind him. “What the- oh, it’s you, Randy.” “Let’s go to the back room,” said Randy in his normal voice. “Where’s John?” “Let’s leave him out of this.” Randy was Steve and John’s agent. He found jobs and decided whether or not they would take them. “So what’s the case, Randy?” Steve asked, sitting down in his armchair. The armchair was an antique that he had stolen. It was the only exception to his rule that he would not steal for himself. “It’s a crazy German guy. He wants you to steal some ancestors’ skull of his. Thinks it’s related to some curse.” Randy didn’t hold up with such nonsense, and John was superstitious as an old wife. Steve himself reserved judgement. “Ah, I see why you didn’t tell John.” “Yeah, John would probably freak out, claiming the curse would land on him.” “Tell him anyways. John’s a good man. Er, a bad one, I mean.” Randy looked at Steve sideways. “Whatever you say man, whatever you say.”

Steve had heard the rest of the case later. The skull was a German pirate from the middle ages. He had been eventually caught, and been sentenced to death. He had begged for release, saying he had “unfinished business.” He had claimed that if “someone” found out who had killed him and kept him from business, they would be angry.

On the day of his execution, he had broken down and started cackling about some curse that would activate if he was left as a corpse. The scared executioners had him beheaded. No one ever stepped forward to claim “unfinished business.”

Apparently the German had believed about the curse and wanted to avenge the death…or something about that crazy. So Steve had convinced John and they had taken the case. “So, once we’re in Germany, we’ll sneak into the museum, we’ll turn off the alarms around the case, but we won’t cut power?” checked John. “Right. Cutting power would call the police anyways, and the guy said that he didn’t want to alert the police.”

“No way, man. I’m getting out of here.” John ran, tripping the silent alarm. “Oh, crap” said Steve. He grabbed the skull and ran. He narrowly avoided the police. When he got back stateside, he gave the skull to Randy, and told him about the John situation. “Shame he bolted. Now we’ll have to put a hit on him. So what was the curse, anyways?” Steve asked. “Something about natural disasters or some crap. The disasters would happen faster and faster after the first one. Good thing we don’t believe in that @#$%.” Spat Randy.

“Yes, that’s right, a giant Earthquake in Haiti.” said the perky newscaster. “More after the break.” The next morning, Steve stepped outside the apartment. The paperboy had missed again. He wandered over to the hedge. How the paperboy consistently managed to get a paper in the center of a hedge not even visible from the street level never ceased to mystify him. He reached inside and grabbed the wet, soggy, leafy newspaper. He went inside and waited for it to dry out. As he munched on his breakfast, he noticed the headline. Massive Earthquake Hits Haiti Tipped over, the cereal bowl dripped on the ground. He wrenched the phone off of the hook, and dialed Randy’s number. “Did you see the news?!?” he said in a loud, furtive whisper. “Calm down, Steve. There are natural disasters all the time,” Randy assured. “Just because there’s an earthquake the day after we return the ‘cursed’ skull to an occult obsessed relati- You know what, I’ll just stop talking.” “Should we tell someone?” “Should we tell someone that you are a supercriminal who stole a cursed skull that caused an earthquake? They won’t be able to decide whether your cell should be padded or not!” “I know, but I feel so bad about this…” Steve trailed off. “What the @#$% are you talking about? You’re a criminal. You’ve never felt bad before!” “I guess…” Over the course of the year, NY, London, Beijing, Paris, Rome, and Chicago were all destroyed. On the 25, a meteorite hit the Earth in Mexico. Randy and Steve both died in the fires of New York, while John survived thanks to being in a strong prison.

The author's comments:

I used a story from the Seattle Times about a stolen skeleton head, and I added a story about super criminals and ancient curses!

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